


Family Found - Deleted Scene

by LMX



Series: Avengers ShifterAU [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Caretaking, Gen, Pack Family, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 21:44:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1565102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMX/pseuds/LMX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Talking Bucky down from a PTSD episode. Shifter AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Found - Deleted Scene

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little 'deleted scene' that didn't go into the big version. Takes place roughly one year later.

"Sir, I believe you're needed in the social area," JARVIS' voice was calm and collected, but the words were just a couple of percent faster than usual. Just enough to be noticed.

"What?" Tony asked, rolling out of bed and already looking for his pants.

"One of our guests appears to be in some distress, sir." There was a beat-pause. "If I might recommend the mark twelve?"

"Who's... a suit?"

"Indeed, sir. It seems wise."

-

Bucky was standing shirtless in the middle of the lounge, metal arm gleaming and clean in sharp contrast to the mottled scarring that marked its interface with his skin. His eyes were wide and wild and he was breathing hard. Natasha was stood just inside the doorway, not too subtly hiding a long knife down the side of her leg, and Steve was stood outside the room - out of sight from Bucky's position, his shield looking ridiculous held against his bare chest.

Steve looked up sharply as Tony jetted around the corner, but by the time he'd gestured a clear 'stop there!' Bucky had already seen the Iron Man suit, body shifting to brace against the anticipated attack.

Bucky snarled something aggressive-sounding in what Tony assumed was Russian, and glanced towards the bar in the corner. Following his gaze, Tony found Sam and Hawkeye almost out of sight under the counter. Hawkeye was unconscious, or close enough to it, Sam standing with his wings hunched defensively over him. Natasha replied to whatever had been said in the same language, hard to tell whether she was being soothing or demanding.

"JARVIS, can I get babelfish on this?" Tony said, letting the suit settle to the ground in the doorway. He was going to try and be as non-aggressive as possible, given he was armed to the teeth against a man wearing nothing but sweatpants and an impressive prosthetic, but he wasn't going to let Bucky get past him into the rest of the tower.

"Traitor," Bucky's translated voice filtered through the suit's speakers, "I should have killed you when I had the chance, snapped your neck while you lay in my bed like a whore."

"OK, fine," Tony interrupted. "I don't need the translation. Do we have a speaker anywhere near enough to Steve to..."

Tony fell quiet - maybe even stopped breathing for a beat - as Bucky lunged forwards, ramming his natural fist into the wall where Natasha had been stood. The metal one, Tony noticed, was hanging limp at his side, twitching occasionally, but not with intentional movement. Natasha reappeared in a flurry of gymnastic fight moves that was near impossible to follow, but which ended with Bucky face-down on the floor, his functioning arm twisted up behind him and the other shifting irregularly beneath him.

Natasha lent in close and murmured something past the curtain of hair that was hiding Bucky's face, and Steve edged into the room. There was something resigned in Steve's face that made Tony think that this wasn't an unusual occurrence, that maybe they'd rehearsed this once or twice before.

As Natasha settled her weight back, stabilising her position and her grip on Bucky's arm, Steve moved up alongside them. "Bucky," he said firmly, his voice full of command. "Tell me where you are." Tony had never imagined himself as anything but alpha, but even he folded when Steve used his alpha-voice. The man was unnaturally good at it.

Bucky thrashed under Natasha, but still couldn't get his other arm to respond, and eventually he stilled with another torrent of profanity that Tony was glad he didn't understand. Steve moved closer again, crouching just out of reach but in Bucky's eyeline. "Bucky, you know me," Steve said, shifting his shield to one side. "Who am I?"

Bruce appeared from the furthest doorway and moved quickly past the scene on the floor to where Clint was stirring under Sam's watchful gaze.

Bucky snarled, but didn't look away from Steve, his whole attention taken by the man in front of him. "You're my mission, Stevie," he ground out, his accent indistinct. "My mission."

"Half way there, Buck. You're so close," Steve hadn't relaxed, but his voice had softened, lost that sharp tone of command. From where Tony was standing, he looked like his world was ending, but Tony was getting used to seeing that expression on Steve's face when he thought his rag-tag pack weren't watching. It made something solid form in his throat as Steve reached out to push Bucky's hair from his face.

"He was holding me down," Bucky whined, sounding more like himself... like the 'himself' Tony knew, anyway, by the minute. He paused, scrabbling in a vain attempt to get his feet under him and throw Natasha off. "You said if anyone tried to hold me down..."

"Natasha will let you go soon, I promise, but first I need to know..."

"He fell asleep on you, Buck," Sam said, sitting human-form now on the bar top with his elbows on his knees. He looked relaxed, but he was well placed to intervene if Bucky made a move towards Clint or Bruce. "He didn't mean it, he just fell asleep."

Bucky hadn't looked away from Steve, but his body had relaxed, settling despite Natasha still sat on his back. "I panicked," he said, finally looking away from Steve's face. "I was asleep and I..." He took a breath and pushed up with an easy motion of his metal hand, displacing Natasha and getting to his knees.

Tony tensed, but everyone else seemed to have taken this as some kind of all-clear. Natasha was stood behind Bucky, her hand resting on his shoulder as he tipped to lean against her knees, and Steve was getting to his feet and heading towards Bruce. "Is he alright?" Steve asked Bruce quietly.

"Nothing worse than what he's done to himself in the past," Bruce answered, moving back into view and letting Clint limp out after him, head low and tail wagging in apologetic supplication.

It was later, when everyone had been hustled back to their rooms, that Tony dropped onto a sofa next to Steve. They looked out over New York and took in the early dawn light. "You alright?"

"Ask me again tomorrow," he said quietly.

"Why doesn't Bucky's arm work when he's having a flashback?" Tony asked, curiosity filling in when his ability to comfort ran short.

"The old one... the first one they gave him..." Steve's face hardened, his jaw clenching. "It was hardwired into his nervous system. He couldn't shift, and between that and the hack-job neurosurgery it was messing him up. This one is... not as directly connected. It took him years of hard work to get it right, to make it look natural like the last one did, but he can't work it out when his mind is back then." Steve fell silent for a moment and then gave a half-hearted shrug. "One of these days we're going to find out it's turned into muscle memory and we'll all be in big trouble. But maybe he'll be better by then?" Steve looked up and met Tony's eyes, and he looked so devastatingly young that for a minute Tony just wanted to be alpha. To take all that off his shoulders.

"He'll be okay, Steve," he said, surprised to find himself believing it. "We're going to be okay."


End file.
